


An Intermission (or two)

by pherryt



Series: What Time Forgets [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Old Guard (Movie 2020), old guard - Fandom
Genre: Avengers - Freeform, Battle of New York, Family, Implied/Referenced Torture, Memory Loss, POV Andy, canon divergent winter soldier, loss of self, off screen character death, pov bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28510128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/pseuds/pherryt
Summary: Two short vignettes focusing on Andy and Bucky (Separately) before the next big story hits:Chapter 1: Andy isn't sure of her usefulness anymore, now that Superheroes are becoming a thing.Chapter 2: Bucky isn't sure of anything at all. Until he is.
Series: What Time Forgets [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043673
Comments: 20
Kudos: 52





	1. Andy - 2012

**Author's Note:**

> Through some sleuthing, the events of Old Guard either take place in 2013 or 2019 (Based on the date on Niles phone - this information was not gleaned by me, but by Hermit9 :D )
> 
> SO - the time line i am using:  
> Battle of New York was May, 2012, Old Guard -AFTER ANDY TOOK A YEAR OFF - April, 2013, then Winter Soldier, 2014
> 
> First chapter is Andy, as the super heroes start popping up in the world (NOT BETA'd)  
> Second chapter is Bucky between when Joe and Nicky lose him and where the next story picks up.

The world was going insane. 

Andy had once thought she’d seen it all, with the exception of the technological advances the world had made. People were, by and far, pretty much the same the world over.

You had good people and bad. The downtrodden and the tyrants. It was just that the latter always seemed to outnumber the former. It kept her busy, at least, but it was the kind of busy that she was no longer finding any sort of joy in. Brief satisfaction, at best.

Her team, her tiny family, they did good in the world. But it never seemed to make a difference. And now there were new players on the field. Iron Man had taken the world by storm. Even Andy couldn’t help but see him everywhere. He was on tv, the radio, the billboards. The internet too, when she bothered to poke about on there. Everywhere she turned, there was merchandise with his picture and name on it. And he… well, he mostly did good too. 

It took him long enough to see what was happening right under his nose, but at least he had, she supposed. Her and her team had encountered far too many of the bad guys holding Stark weapons, doing their evil deeds.

But he was only one man and he couldn’t be everywhere. So she supposed her team still had a purpose, for now. But for how much longer?

* * *

They’d finished up a job in New York and were just resting up - Joe and Nicky had insisted on a little sightseeing, and Andy had rarely been able to deny them anything - when things had taken a turn for the decidedly strange.

The sky had opened up, the heavens churning in a way that not even Andy had seen in her several thousand years upon the earth, and she’d seen many strange weather patterns in that span of time.

It wasn’t natural. Of course it wasn’t natural. Creatures spilled forth from the sky, and New York City was suddenly a battleground. 

Of course Andy sprang into action. She could only assume Booker, Joe and Nicky had as well, but they were separated by blocks upon blocks of skyscrapers. Knowing that they would, ultimately, live was a balm to her mind, and so Andy wasted no time in protecting civilians trapped by whatever these things were.

* * *

They didn’t  _ normally  _ take jobs in the US, but sometimes the occasion called for it. 

As a power in the world - big in some ways and declining in others - the US liked to pretend that it was above the rest of them and that there was nothing of consequence happening on their own soil. No petty wars or police actions that demanded any sort of outside intervention the way  _ they  _ intervened in everyone else’s business.

And yet…

And yet there was plenty that could drag the four of them back again and again, no matter how many times they swore off the entire continent. It was too dangerous, too unpredictable, too…

_ Too stupid. _

Andy hated operating here. It was harder to hide. Harder to keep safehouses up to date and in their names. Booker was always complaining about the complexity of tax laws and property holdings. They had the money for it, but keeping up with the legalities was such a pain.

That's why Andy let Booker worry about it.

Usually. 

Today, none of that mattered. Because today they happened to be in the right place at the right time when the sky opened up. Pouring through the hole like angry demons of a myth from times as old as her and older, these creatures came - aliens, she was told later, not that it mattered to her where they came from - shooting civilians like they were fish in a barrel.

* * *

Andy was ducking between buildings, and leaping over rubble when something flew overhead, discharging several figures.

She flattened herself against a wall to avoid the blast of an alien weapon and wished - more than anything, for her labrys. Lightning split the sky and struck an alien from its flying perch. Its weapon clattered onto the ground and Andy lunged, rolled, and was back on her feet in a second with the weapon in hand.

Unfamiliar as it was, a weapon was a weapon and Andy had handled so many different kinds over the centuries. She figured it out without even thinking, firing it with pinpoint precision.

She grunted.

It was no labrys but it would do.

The figures she’d seen were also fighting the aliens. Iron Man she recognized.

To her surprise, she recognized the others too. The man in the blue suit had died some 70 years ago in the war. It could have been an imposter, she supposed, but she had a good memory for faces and that  _ was  _ Captain America. She was sure of it. 

The man with the bow and the red haired woman were familiar too, players in a world of subterfuge. She never knew their names, had never crossed swords with them, but you moved in certain circles, you learned things, like who to avoid.

The lightning was created by a man who could fly. A man who looked much like one of the gods of old. She’d thought them all gone, left for greener pastures, yet here he was.

Andy faded back to the edges of the fighting, letting the new team take the brunt of the fight.

Her and her team needed to stay in the shadows. Let the new ones draw the enemy fire, let them - in their bright colors and flashy weapons - be the distraction that let Andy and her own team save the civilians from being crushed by falling masonry or shot with an alien weapon.

There was still some good they could do in this world. 

But Andy feared that the end of their usefulness was fast approaching. What need did the world have of immortal warriors who fought in the shadows when they had heroes like _ that? _


	2. Bucky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MCD Trigger
> 
> If you want spoilers, check the end notes. if you don't, please skip the end notes. It is very very spoilery.

Contrary to popular belief, Bucky Barnes didn't die when he fell off the train. He died when HYDRA found him in the ice and tore all the things that made him Bucky out of his head, leaving a blank slate to use at will.

Still, bits and pieces of Bucky Barnes continued to surface years after, prompting more and worse conditionings from HYDRA, more sessions in the chair, more punishments.

Bucky Barnes died and the Winter Soldier was born, but sometimes someone else existed in the between, someone who nudged the Winter Soldier off course, jiggled his aim, whispered into his ear.

HYDRA lost the Winter Soldier more times then they  _ ever  _ wanted to admit to  _ anyone _ . Because there was something about Bucky Barnes that refused to completely ever die, something about Bucky Barnes that warped the mindwiping machines, the programming, the safe words.

And yet, they had invested far too much in him, in their weapon - had created something that they hadn’t yet come close to replicating – to let him go so easily.

The asset ran, remembering none of this except how it felt  _ wrong.  _ How dirty he felt every time he killed on their orders.

* * *

The winter in Romania was one that HYDRA tried to take from him, his most successful attempt so far, but something of it stayed. Some semblance of satisfaction that  _ somehow _ , he’d managed to keep something away from them, even if he could no longer remember what.

But it was important, and that they didn’t have it was all that mattered. It made enduring their punishments a little easier – for a little while at least.

* * *

He behaved, mostly, remembering only that as long as he did, he was keeping someone safe. They started loaning him out to others. That’s how he wound up at the Red Room, teaching a handful of girls.

One of them, the redhead, was special. The whisper in his head colored his interactions with her, planting seeds for her freedom even as he taught her how to be the best at what she was. 

Of all of them, he knew she was the only one who had a chance. He didn’t have one, so he gave her everything he could to help her get her own.

* * *

When he ran the car off the road, killed the couple inside and stole a briefcase from the trunk, the Asset felt a twinge, like the last bit of an old life had been wiped clean. That other was whispering in his ear again. But the whisper had started as a scream and faded away till he had to struggle to hear it.

* * *

“Captain America is being a thorn in our sides. Take care of it.”

Captain America was an order, nothing more, nothing less.

At least, he should have been, but that part of the Asset that had been silent for decades now rose up and tried to reassert some control. 

He pushed it down.

Then he took Captain America down, watched him fall into the river from the burning wreck. The Asset had both succeeded and failed. He'd taken care of the captain, but not before the captain had accomplished what he’d set out to do.

The part of the Asset that wasn’t HYDRAs toy pushed forward again and he dove into the river, but it was too late. Captain America was dead.

He didn’t understand why that fact gutted him.

Not until a week and hundreds of miles later as memories continued to come back to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve. It's Steve, okay. Remember that this is Bucky's POV. He knows (thinks) he's killed Steve.
> 
> At the time of writing this, i was going to let it stay that way. it becomes a BIG plot point in Bucky's state of mind in the next parts. But after talking it over with someone, i think i've found a way to fix it. But it still won't happen till the very end (which is not this part) because Bucky - and others - still need to believe Steve is dead. So keep that in mind.


End file.
